Old Jade

 

This week we had some fun family celebrations from across the country. It's that time of year when I put together my Christmas countdown for the nieces and nephews. Last year I made a countdown paper chain that had an activity to do each week they were at the Richins for Sunday dinner. They would FaceTime and show us pictures of them doing puzzles, gathering leaves, having a dance party, etc. This year I took a different approach and decided to send them three presents that they'd open every other week when they were over at Jeff & Amy's. They are all games they can play and ultimately we can play with them once we get back. One is a puzzle with a written letter on the back so you have to build it and then flip it over to read. The other is a game called Spot It that some people in our ward showed us. But my pride and joy is the game I altered called Old Jade. I took an Old Maid deck of cards and printed out pictures of everyone in the family and taped them over the characters on the cards. I can't wait for them to open and play! I also can't wait because that means we're one week closer to coming home and spending Christmas all together. 

Another key memory that deserves some backstory is wishing our brother in law Casey a Happy Birthday. We have this thing going on where we try to one up each other with cardboard cards. It all started when I was dating Jaden and living in Salt Lake his sisters invited me to go to a Luke Bryan concert to celebrate Amanda's birthday. I swung by a local boutique and picked up a pair of cute dainty earrings I thought she would like and when I got home I realized that I hadn't bought a card to go with it and we didn't have any craft supplies in the house. Looking back I probably could/should have just used a piece of notebook paper but then this story and tradition wouldn't exist. So I chose what I thought was the next viable option for a card: a square of cardboard. Amanda laughed when she opened it but her husband Casey thought it was hilarious and gave me a hard time about it. A couple of months later when it was my birthday he gave me a card made out of a larger piece of cardboard and the tradition has just gotten bigger and bigger each year. 

This year might have been our best though. I pulled down a dozen or so boxes from our storage from when we moved out here and taped them together and wrote HBD Case on them. Then Jaden and I propped up a camera, sneaked behind them and ran through the boxes like the Koolaid man yelling Happy Birthday Casey!!! It was awesome. Even though we're thousands of miles away it's still fun to celebrate and make memories with family and friends back home.

Peaches

• I came home one day from the store and walked into the kitchen and Jaden said "I moved Landon and Mady's save the date to this side of the fridge so I could see them every time I walked in." We are SOOO excited for their wedding this next summer. And we feel extra excited and honored because they called and asked Jaden if he would be the one to marry them. 

• We took second place in our Ward's chili cookoff using a recipe from Browning's corporate office cook

• Tried a new Asian fusion taco place called Tako which was really cool vibe and yummy take on tacos

• When work/school is extra busy Jaden swoops in and saves the day and makes dinner. I sent him a recipe from one of our fav sites Half Baked Harvest and he knocked it out of the park. It's seriously so so good. Chicken with a basil pesto type sauce with sweet potatoes and veggies. Still drooling over it

• Had to pay $20 parking in the city to go to Tako restaurant but it came with this view that I thought was worth at least a few dollars

• Flag football is back and so is the expectation that I am the soccer mom and will bring treats each week. The team was not disappointed with my Jack-o-lantern/emoji clementines

Pits

• $20 parking
• Putting away all of those boxes

• Homework
• Had to order playing cards from Amazon because stores like Target/Walmart that would carry stuff like that are too far away with our busy schedules. Random errands in a city take time and planning